The present invention relates generally to the use of personal computers (PCs) for message-based correspondence such as email and for reading and writing documents, and more specifically to a system and method of performing such message-based correspondence and reading and writing of documents with increased efficiency and at a higher level of integration.
The PC is typically used by most knowledge workers in the following ways: to read information in documents or on the web, to communicate by engaging in discourse using email or instant-messaging, and to author or edit knowledge in the form of documents or presentations. Most email programs allow users to sort messages contained in in-boxes by subject, causing messages about a given topic to appear together. An email system may also allow users to sort messages by addressee, allowing the history of interactions with a given addressee over time to be examined, and so forth. However, beyond these simple features, the user of an email system must generally read and comprehend many messages in order to form a picture of an unfolding discourse among a group of individuals on any given topic. Messages with apparently different subject headings may be related or unrelated in content, but this is not self-evident. Thus, while email in-boxes tend to be the default record of knowledge workers' interactions, decisions, and collaborations, the tools currently provided for managing them generally do a poor job of maintaining that record and making it easily understood and applied.
For this reason, an email conversation is often accompanied by the need to create a lasting representation of what was discussed in the form of a document, presentation, or other kind of persistent information. There is an interplay between email as the carrier of a conversation, and the evolution of documents related to that conversation. But, as with email, there is not much about a document that gives clues as to its meaning, beyond the content of the document itself. If a user wishes to understand what a document is about and how it relates to the email conversation surrounding it, the document, and perhaps the threads of email associated with it, usually must be read and comprehended.
Despite the speed, efficiency, searchability, and other benefits that the PC brings to the business of creating and managing files, folders, memoranda, and correspondence, little real support has heretofore been given to the management of the content and meaning of email and related documents. As a result, the office of today's knowledge worker is still much like the paper office of the 1930's.